


You Can't Ever Know

by idoneum



Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, First Time, M/M, Seriously dub-con, kink meme fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-15
Updated: 2012-12-15
Packaged: 2017-11-21 04:27:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/593450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idoneum/pseuds/idoneum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a prompt at the WC kink meme. Peter tells Neal that if he's uncomfortable with their relationship at any time, all he has to do is use the safe word Peter has chosen for him: prison.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can't Ever Know

**Author's Note:**

> Kink meme thread here: http://collarkink.livejournal.com/1093.html?thread=1628229#t1628229

Flirting. It’s a harmless dance that Neal has engaged in hundreds, maybe thousands of times before. And if he does it a little more with Peter than with anyone else, that’s because, for the first time in a long while, he likes the person he’s working with--and more than that, he trusts him. Neal knows that Peter will do the right thing, no matter what. He needs a constant in his life, now more than ever, and it helps to know that Peter is very predictable. 

 

To be honest, Neal doesn’t think Peter will ever take him up on any of the half suggestions he leaves floating between them. Not just because of El (though Neal considers himself a fairly good judge of human nature, and from the way she looks at him and Peter when they’re together, he doesn’t think she’d mind) but because it wouldn’t be conduct befitting of an agent (Neal thinks Peter could stand to loosen up on the protocol a bit, but that’s another story). But it’s not like Neal is blind to the tension between them, not like he doesn’t know where flirting can lead, so he’s not entirely surprised when one evening they’re in his room at June’s, leaning over cold case files and talking around the subject of Kate and Peter suddenly closes the distance between them, kissing him roughly. 

 

“You need to listen, sometimes, Neal! You can’t go off on these hare-brained schemes without telling anyone! Without telling _me_ ,” is what Peter says, right before he pulls Neal close. “I can protect you, but only if you listen to me.” 

 

Neal stands, letting Peter draw him in so the kiss can be closer, deeper, more. His movement makes the stool between them clatter to the ground, but he’s too involved in exploring Peter to do more than shove it out of the way with his foot. 

 

“God,” Peter moans against his lips. “You’ve no idea,” Peter presses back in, then pulls back to whisper, “Neal,” in the space between them quietly, reverently, like he’s wishing on a star, or praying “How long I’ve-” and he closes the space between them again, like he’s addicted to Neal’s mouth, like he can’t stay away. He crowds Neal up against the table so there’s no room for Neal to move anywhere but closer to him, he buries his hands in Neal’s hair, tugging at it to tilt Neal’s head up just a little farther. 

 

Neal has always liked kissing, but he thinks kissing Peter could soon be his favorite activity in the world. He feels like the center of the universe as Peter’s hands leave his hair and move downwards, skimming the contours of his body possessively before returning to tangle at the nape of his neck. He feels like he’s being shaped anew with every touch, and wonders absurdly if this is how the David felt when being sculpted by Michelangelo; if Pygmalion ever touched Galatea with such reverence. 

 

Neal thinks Peter would laugh if he heard the comparisons, but he’s not going to have the opportunity to hear because Neal is burning for Peter, and he can tell that Peter feels the same. He moves his hands up from Peter’s waist and starts to flick the buttons on Peter’s shirt open with deft motions--Peter’d taken off the tie as soon as they got to June’s--but then Peter is backing off with a frown on his face, and resisting Neal’s attempts to tug him back, and Neal doesn’t know why.

 

“Before I--before this goes any further,” Peter says hoarsely, skin flushed to a shade somewhere between coral pink and coral red, and Neal wants to see all the different colors he can make Peter turn, “I want--I want you to know--”

 

“Yeah?” Neal presses, his own voice ragged, when it doesn’t seem like Peter’s going to continue.

 

“I want you to have a safeword.”

 

Neal’s shocked into stillness by that. First of all, Peter knows what a safeword is?--then again, Neal knows that El is nothing if not thorough, and he can’t see her settling for a purely vanilla sex life if she hasn’t tried out all the alternatives--But secondly, he feels a slowly creeping delight paralyzing him with heady joy. Peter _cares_. Peter wants to make sure that he knows Neal’s boundaries, that he isn’t overstepping them. Neal thinks he might be a little in love. Maybe a lot, he amends, as Peter’s eyes go dark with arousal when Neal agrees.

 

“Okay.” He swallows. “Just let me think--”

 

“No,” Peter says, tightening his grip in Neal’s hair and pressing his hips forward. “I have one for you.” 

 

Neal huffs a breathy laugh; Peter always was sort of a control freak. “Alright,” he says, leaning towards Peter with a grin, still dizzy with happiness. “What is it?” 

 

Peter slides one hand down to rest lightly around Neal’s neck, then moves forward so that his lips are just barely brushing against Neal’s ear. “Prison,” he says, low and commanding, and Neal freezes again, but not with anything like joy, because that’s not funny, that’s not funny at _all_ , and how could Peter joke about something like that?

 

He moves to pull back, but Peter’s hand tightens at his throat, and it’s only now that Neal’s realizing the precarious position he’s in, because _Peter’s not joking_. If he turns his head away from the pressure at his throat a little, he can see Peter watching him, his eyes filled with a darkness that doesn’t stem from arousal alone. 

 

“Peter,” he whispers shakily, searching for a response that will defuse the situation, a mask that will know all the right things to say, but nothing’s coming, because he’s not used to treating Peter like a mark, and he’s reeling from the _wrongness_ of all of it.

 

“Say it,” commands Peter. “Tell me your safeword.” He skims a gentle thumb across Neal’s racing pulsepoint before his other hand tightens painfully in Neal’s hair. “I want to hear you say it.”

 

“Prison.” Neal doesn’t know where he gets the strength to keep his voice steady, or to straighten against the pull in his hair and look defiantly into Peter’s eyes when all he can hear is a roaring in his ears that sounds like the slide of a cell door and all he can see is a bleak, colorless future in which he is trapped, albeit inside invisible walls. The happiness, the excitement of just a few moments earlier is gone in a cold shock and the last vestiges of  his arousal slink away.

 

“Yes,” Peter breathes and pulls him over towards the bed. Peter’s not exactly gentle, but he’s no rougher than some of Neal’s lovers have been in the past. Neal goes quietly, obeys Peter’s commands (except at first, when he tells Peter to leave his hands free, and Peter says “You’ll do it my way and like it, Neal. You need to learn to take direction,” and follows it up with “If you’re good, maybe next time” and Neal wants to shout that there won’t be a next time, but he closes his eyes and thinks about handcuffs around his wrists instead of Peter’s tie, and he stays silent) and comes when he’s told, with Peter chanting “Yesyesyes, so fucking good, better than I ever dreamed” behind him.  

 

Lying in the circle of Peter’s arms afterwards, Neal wishes Peter had been rough, had left bruises or cuts. He thinks maybe he’d feel less alienated from reality if he had a tangible mark of the betrayal that makes him feel like his soul has been put through a paper shredder. 

 

Most of all Neal wonders why. Perhaps, possibly, maybe; the speculations pile up inside his head, each wilder than the last. Neal supposes that Peter likes knowing that he’ll never say no; that Neal will find anything Peter does infinitely more bearable than prison. Maybe Peter gets off on having a sure thing, maybe he wants a lover he can treat like a doll instead of a person, maybe he just wants to break Neal down and make him suffer.

 

It’s ironic, Neal thinks as Peter drops falsely sweet kisses on his neck, because he would have willingly done all those things--done anything--for _his_ Peter, the one he thought he knew. 

 


End file.
